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COMMEMORATIVE TRIBUTE TO 



GEORGE LOCKHART RIVES 



By WILLIAM MILLIGAN SLOANE 



PREPARED FOR 

THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF 
ARTS AND LETTERS 

1920 




AMERICAN ACADEMY OF 

ARTS AND LETTERS 

1922 



COMMEMORATIVE TRIBUTE TO 

GEORGE LOCKHART RIVE;S 

By WILLIAM MILLIGAN SLOANE V 



PREPARED FOR 

THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF 

ARTS AND LETTERS 

1920 




AMERICAN ACADEMY OF 
ARTS AND LETTERS " 
1922 



H^ 



V \'\ J 



Copyright, 1922, by 
The American Academy of Arts and Letters 



m -.? 1922 ^ Q- 

©CIA681175 :^ 





I 


GEORGE LOCKHART RIVES 

By William Milligan Sloane 

]\Ir. Rives's volumes entitled TJie 
United States and Mexico, 1821-1848, 
constitute a history of events leading 
up to the war of 1848. Its publication 
revealed the author as a foremost 
American historian, and gave him a 
chair in the American Academy of 
Arts and Letters. To those unac- 
quainted with his career the event was 
perhaps startling, but to his nearer cir- 
cle and the more observant critics it was 
a foregone conclusion. His long, full, 
active life had been a preparation for 
exactly such a culmination. His was 
the well-known Virginia family which 
gave to the public service senator and 




ACADEMY NOTES 





2 


THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 




diplomat, with a great engineer and 
authors of renown. He, however, de- 
scended on his mother's side from fa- 
mous New York Colony stock, was 
born in New York City in 1849, ^^^ 
died there in 191 7. Educated at Co- 
lumbia, and in Cambridge, England, 
he was eminent both in scholarship and 
sport. His vocation was the law ; being 
rather more devoted to jurisprudence 
than to practice at the bar, it was as 
a legal adviser and administrator that 
he early became a foremost citizen of 
the metropolis. He was Assistant Sec- 
retary of State to Mr. Bayard under 
Cleveland, president of the commission 
to revise the New York charter, Cor- 
poration Counsel, and a member of 
the Rapid Transit Commission. He 
was a director of four great financia' 
corporations and president of the New 
York Hospital. But above all he was 
president of the Public Library and of 
the Trustees of his Alma Mater. From 




OF ARTS AND LETTERS 



OF ARTS AND LETTERS 



three leading universities he received 
the highest academic degree. He was 
the author of many papers and mono- 
graphs, and of several volumes, local 
in interest, as well as of the more 
national work mentioned above. This 
recapitulation, together with the fact 
that in some circles he was virtually a 
social dictator by reason of his varied 
gifts, his recognized station, and his 
judicious pronouncements, are suffi- 
cient to explain his presence in our 
company, for membership in the Acad- 
emy should indicate not only great 
achievement but personal qualities 
equally eminent. 

His personality was very marked 
and in our day quite exceptional. Im- 
posing in looks and figure he possessed 
in high degree the two un-American 
traits of reticence and tranquillity. 
Saez'is tvanquillus in undis might have 
been his motto. Indeed he was a man 
of the William of Nassau type, aware 



AND MONOGRAPHS 



THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



of his opportunities, silent when can- 
dor did not forbid. Sternly self-re- 
specting, he took the responsibilities 
of his own opinions and was entirely 
fearless in action. In the sense of 
knowing and keeping company with 
the best in life and letters he was an 
aristocrat, his private library was one 
of the most select known to the present 
writer. Yet he was essentially dem- 
ocratic in the power of putting himself 
in every man's place and securing 
every man's point of view. 

This was the secret of his enormous 
influence. His writing is thoroughly 
studied, its contents are carefully con- 
structed, and his judgments are emi- 
nently fair. Identical qualities were 
exhibited in his life. The Public 
Library of New York literally enfolds 
the masses of the city in its "interpre- 
ter's" palace ; Columbia University 
represents in almost exact proportion 
each single element in the total popu- 



ACADEMY NOTES 



OF ARTS AND LETTERS 


5 


lation of the metropolis. Both became 
under the Board over which he 
presided so democratically popular 
that their numerical enormity renders 
their vast resources scarcely as ade- 
quate as the pence in a palmer's scrip. 
But like the pilgrim they take little 
thought for the distant scene and 
march on in the present. For such a 
policy Air. Rives felt and assumed his 
full share of obligation and was always 
at the post of duty. 

While in a sense history was his 
avocation, yet in his devotion to "door- 
step" activities he was the outstanding 
example that service in the larger 
sphere is valuable in almost exact pro- 
portion to its perfection in its imme- 
diate surroundings. 




AND MONOGRAPHS 






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